Wisconsin improves to 5-1 at 2009 U.S. Mixed Championship

(MEDFORD, Wis.) - Wisconsin's Ryan Lemke rink is using the home ice to their advantage at the 2009 U.S. Mixed National Championship at the Medford Curling Club where the team is tied for first place more than halfway through the round robin.

The 2008 mixed silver medalists Lemke (Medford, Wis.) and teammates Jackie Lemke (Medford), Kroy Nernberger (Madison, Wis.) and Rebecca Wood (Madison) took down Connecticut's Derek Surka rink, 11-4, in recent action at the four-sheet curling club, which most recently hosted the mixed in 2003. Winner of the competition that year was the Brady Clark rink, which is tied with Lemke and Arizona's Fred Maxie team at 5-1 for first place. Washington defeated Maryland's Scott Edie rink, 9-5, while Maxie's team from the Coyotes Curling Club snuck by Illinois, 6-4.

North Dakota I's Al Gulseth rink picked up his second straight win of the tournament with a 5-3 defeat of Peter Stolt's Minnesota rink. Gulseth (Moorhead, Minn.) and teammates Michelle Wagner (Fargo, N.D.), Mark Gulseth (Aberdeen, S.D.) and Amelia Pirkl (Fargo, N.D.) broke open a 2-2 game with a decisive deuce in the eighth end and held Stolt to just a single in the ninth.